Commitment by East Midlands care homes to their residents’ safety applauded by national health and care system leaders
Our Patient Safety Collaborative has forged strong relationships with care homes across the East Midlands. These homes have been applauded by a number of national figures including Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for NHS England and NHS Improvement and Professor Martin Vernon, whilst in his role as National Clinical Director for Older People and Person Centred Integrated Care at NHS England, for their dedication and commitment to the safety of their residents.
Our work with care homes over the last year includes:
Deterioration Community of Practice – Within this community of practice we worked with care homes to gain feedback about the most appropriate deterioration and escalation tools and establish whether they could be adapted to better meet their needs. Feedback from this community of practice was used nationally by PSCs to support the spread of deterioration tools as a response to COVID-19. Find out more about this work here.
Medicines administration – As part of a national medicines safety workstream, we worked with care homes to develop programmes to help care homes reduce and avoid medicine administration errors. Initially this involved a workshop with over 30 care homes where the group considered factors leading up to common medication errors and the steps taken after these errors. Discussions and outcomes from this workshop will be used to develop potential programmes of work in this area. Involving care homes in this evaluation and discussion ensures that any future programmes will better meet their needs.
Quality Improvement audit – Since 2015 we have delivered an improvement project where care homes are supported to introduce the Landielijke Prevalentiemeting Zorgkwaliteit tool (LPZ), which measures the prevalence of common care issues such as pressure ulcers, continence, nutrition, falls, restraint and pain. Routinely reviewing LPZ data, allows care homes to make improvements to the care they deliver resulting in reduced pressure ulcers and improved continence and pain management. The project saw huge growth in 2019, with 65 East Midlands care homes now taking part in the audit to improve the care they deliver. Learn more about the care homes LPZ project here.
Find out more about our patient safety programmes and any new workstreams
